First World War football match remembered with 'Plug Street' Uefa memorial

Belgian monument unveiled to mark “humanity” of British and German soldiers
who put down their arms and left their trenches to play football during an
unofficial truce on Christmas Day 1914

UEFA President Michel Platini, right, and the Mayor of Ploegsteert Gilbert Deleu, left, listen to speeches after unveiling a World War I Christmas Truce monument in Ploegsteert, BelgiumPhoto: Virginia Mayo/AP

The iron sculpture depicting a ball on top of a shattered shell half buried in the mud of a Flanders battlefield was inaugurated on Thursday by Michel Platini, the former French international and head of Uefa, the European football federation.

"I pay tribute to the soldiers who, one hundred years ago, showed their humanity by playing football together, opening an important chapter in European unity and providing a lasting example to young people," he said.

The football match, which the Germans won three goals to two, was played close to the farm of Saint-Yvon in the No Man’s Land between trenches near Ploegsteert wood, dubbed “Plug Street” by British soldiers, near Warneton in Wallonia.

During the two day truce, troops from both sides were also able to collect and bury their dead who had fallen in No Man's Land.

Ken Skates, a Welsh minister for culture attended the ceremony which was just a few yards away from Prowse Point Cemetery, where the bodies of British and Irish soldiers killed in the fighting immediately before and after the truce in 1914 are buried.

"A century ago when war was so frequent, something magical happened,” he said.

"Through Christmas spirit, the sound of war was silenced and soldiers from opposing sides laid down their weapons and exchanged photographs and gifts. One of the most remarkable moments in our history was united by a common interest, in football."

Andrew Hamilton, the grandson of the British Army captain whose handshake with a German officer was the signal the unofficial Christmas truce, described the festive fraternisation as a moment when men “forgot about the war and became human again”.

“For him and all his men it meant so much. There were star shells going up, there was singing and candles being lit on Christmas Eve. Then they met at dawn, unarmed in No Man’s Land on Christmas Day,” he said.

In his diary, Captain Robert Hamilton, in command of A Company, 1st Bn the Royal Warwickshire Regiment, described the events, a century ago, as “a day unique in the world’s history” as his peaceful encounter lead to a truce “throughout the whole line”.

Mr Hamilton, a historian who has written a book “Meet at Dawn Unarmed”, based on his grandfather’s diary and other first account accounts of the truce, said the ceasefire came after both British and German has serenaded each other with carols on Christmas Eve.

As the sun rose on Christmas Day, after contacts between his orderly and German troops, Capt Hamilton left his revolver behind and climbed out of his trench to meet an officer of the 134th Saxon Corps.

“For me the major moment is when my grandfather shook hands with a German officer at dawn,” said Mr Hamilton.

“That was the signal for hundreds of soldiers to move out of their trenches and fraternise. It is the handshake that is the great moment for me.”

According to the diary of Lieutenant Kurt Zehmisch, of the German 134 Saxon Regiment, a game of football quickly broke out between men who had been fighting to the death just hours before. “One of the British brought a football from his trench and a vigorous football match kicked off. It was all so marvellous, so strange,” he wrote.

Eckart Cuntz, the German ambassador to Belgium, said that the truce had dismayed both Prussian and British “superiors” but was the triumph of a common humanity. "The message was that human beings, if they want to stop killing each other, they can do it,” he said. “Despite that savagery, the magic of Christmas took over.”